January 25, 2009 By BDN Administrator

I just love the name “Sherbet Blossom Designs!” It’s original, catchy and creates a lovely vision in your mind without ever seeing the product. However, you are equally delighted when you see the beautiful blogs, websites and banners produced there.

The owner, Hannah, is a work-at-home mom who is a graphic designer for a publishing company which designs magazines. While she still works for them, her passion is Sherbet Blossom Designs and creating custom designs to fit the individual tastes and needs of each client.

In addition to blog and website designs, she also makes custom prints, such as wedding invitations, birth announcements and Christmas cards.

Here are some examples of blogs she has designed:

I highly recommend heading over to Sherbet Blossom Designs and taking a look at her work. You can get a custom design for as little as $45, including installation, which is an excellent value!

If you have time, also stop by Hannah’s personal blog. It is not only beautiful, but full of good recipes, great links, incredible pictures and more!

January 26, 2009 By BDN Administrator

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.

The Bloggy Giveaways Carnival starts today and I am giving away a premade blog template by Delicious Design Studio, worth up to $40! Here are some samples of their premade templates:

Why a premade template and not a custom design? Well, because I think these templates are gorgeous and the blogger who wins gets immediate gratification. Custom designs often take weeks, as many designers already have several clients ahead of them in their queue.

The winner will be contacted after the carnival ends and they get to choose from the many premade templates for sale at Delicious Designs Studio. The template and instructions on how to install it are emailed to them within 24 hours.

How do you enter the drawing for the premade template? Simply leave a pleasant comment here. If you don’t have a blog, leave your email so I can contact you if you win.

Would you like to hear about designer’s giveaways and sales throughout the year? When they post new free templates and buttons? Simply subscribe to Beautiful Blog Designs and I will post when they happen (as I did here).

Now, head back to Bloggy Giveaways to see what else there is!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.

June 30, 2011 By BDN Administrator

Here are some cute, seamless backgrounds that you can use on blog designs.  Just download the PSD (Adobe Photoshop Document), edit them, colorize them, and more!   The possibilities are endless!  Here is a sample of what you can make! Download 9 Free Background Patterns in .PSD format here.

May 14, 2013 By BDN Administrator

The May Blogging Challenge is in full swing! You can still join over 130 blogs and get your blog or business back on track!

Workflow need some oomph? Ready to make life a little easier? Once you try these tools, you won’t be able to shake ‘em!

Browser-Specific Web Developer Extensions

Depending on your browser, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari all have pretty sweet web developer features you can add easily by doing a quick search. Our favorites are (hands down) Firebug or an “Inspect Element” tool, the “Responsive Design” Views, and screen measurement tools.  These take the guesswork out of design!

Stripe Generator

With thousands of stripe variations being at the forefront of popular design lately, this handy tool allows you to choose the width, spacing, color, and more of your striped background!

Coffitivity

This ambient sound generator plays background noise while you work! Sound strange? “The mix of calm and commotion in an environment like a coffee house is proven to be just what you need to get those creative juices flowing.”

Color Wheel

A handful of sites have cool color pickers and swatches for inspiration. This easy to use color picker is quick and simple, and always seems to produce the perfect combo!

Social Media Cheat Sheet

An excellent (and thorough) guide for creating social media graphics.

 

CSS3 Generator

Manually coding several lines of browser-friendly CSS can be painstaking. Visually edit the specific item you need, such as rounded corners or drop shadows, and simply copy the code and paste in your stylesheet!

W3 Schools Try It Editor

Perfect for coding CSS sprites, this code editor allows you to refresh and view your results on the right side of the screen.

Subtle Patterns

Give it a pin!

April 13, 2011 By BDN Administrator

In the past few days, many bloggers and designers (mostly on the Blogger platform) have been affected by the “outage” at Photobucket that leaves many blogs looking something like this:   Photobucket claims about 2% of users have been affected by this maintenance phase, which is lasting much longer than initially planned.  For a lot […]

Thank you for your interest in advertising with the Blog Designer Network!  Your rates will stay in place for the time period you purchase.  Note:  Currently these are SALE prices that last through the end of 2012!  You will have the option to renew at a higher rate, or you can purchase many months in advance at this price.

September 12, 2012 By BDN Administrator

The art of designing blogs and websites is a relatively new and booming business.  Every month several people graduate our Blog & Web Designer Workshop, and other talented individuals all over the web are launching online-based design shops.  As a blogger, you may be looking for a designer using our directory, or are searching independently […]

January 2, 2012 By April at CreativeGirlMedia.com

If you’ve been curious about design and taking the plunge into starting your own business, this week begins the next installment of the Blog Designer Workshop.  Click here for more information and to register.  This workshop is great for both intermediate and novice designers and coders, and covers Blogger coding, WordPress coding, and design in […]

January 16, 2012 By BDN Administrator

We’re very excited to offer this new class on Wednesday evening.  Both designers and bloggers will benefit from this course on making social media both beautiful and functional. Whether you use social media often, use one more than others, or are a total newbie – this course includes everything you need, and you can attend […]

June 10, 2013 By BDN Administrator

Any seasoned web designer knows that building a pretty website is not enough to ensure its success. Sites need to be continually tested on users after their completion, as well as during their construction to optimize their likelihood of effectiveness. Google Analytics offers a package of every kind of statistical testing you might need for your websites, and much of it is ideal for integrating it into your design process. These are some of the most basic and beneficial ways to use Google Analytics, but if you’re not sure where to start, follow this beginner’s guide to analytics.

Speed

Internet users judge a website almost immediately, so it only has a couple of seconds to make a good impression. A major contributor in how a site is judged is how quickly it loads. Speed is such an important factor for users that if a site takes more than 3 seconds to load, 40% will abandon the page. A fast site – and one that quickly provides incentive to stay – is what pleases users most.

How Google Analytics can help
The app has a “Bounce Rate” metric specifically for measuring how users first interact with your site. A bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who enter a site and leave it without making a conversion. A high bounce rate means your site is somehow failing to engage users, and a slow speed could be part of that reason. For a visual overview of how people are judging your site, including bounce rate and time on page, access Content>In-Page Analytics. To make speed improvements as you design, create consistent and attention-grabbing usability elements, like a main header, navigation system and calls-to-action; and retest your bounce rate after making each change.

Split Testing

Also known as A/B Testing, this is a way of measuring how specific content affects user interaction and conversion. Version “A” is considered the control design, while Version “B” has one particular difference from the control, and each version is tested for effectiveness on users. Changes are usually made in areas like copy, color, size and placement of design elements, fonts, etc. The purpose of this kind of testing is to allow the designer to see which details have the most effect on conversions and overall user experience.

How Google Analytics can help
The Content Analytics section enables you to do content experiments, and it reports the results. The benefit of using this within your workflow and as part of your design process is that you can dictate which objectives to test and receive continuous updates on how your experiment is doing. Based on higher conversion rates or time spent on certain pages, you can continue to use those same characteristics to give users a great experience with your site.

Test, Test, Test

The premise of Google Analytics is that it pays to test early and often. Integrate these testing techniques into your work at the start of each project to accomplish not just an attractive design, but also the most effective.

Author Bio
Luke Clum is a web designer and developer from Seattle.